By Cassie Alfheim and Fred Satterwhite
BLOG OVERVIEW: On June 26, 2026, EEOC announced a $2.8 million sex discrimination settlement with LeachGarner, a Berkshire Hathaway metallurgical company, over allegations that it segregated jobs by sex and paid women less than men. A central term of the three-year consent decree requires EEOC data collection: LeachGarner must gather, retain, and analyze workforce data to identify and remedy barriers in hiring, job assignment, and compensation, alongside standard remedies like EEOC-approved training, policy revisions, and complaint monitoring. The settlement signals how EEOC is applying its new National Enforcement Plan (FY2025–FY2029), which replaced the rescinded 2024–2028 Strategic Enforcement Plan and dropped the explicit "equal pay" priority.
On June 26, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a $2.8 million sex discrimination settlement with metallurgical company LeachGarner, a Berkshire Hathaway company. The consent decree describes alleged discriminatory activities including sex-based job segregation that resulted in pay disparities and directives to staffing agencies to place men in certain roles and women in others.
This consent decree, which lasts for three years and is subject to extension, requires typical terms like documented trainings by an EEOC-approved third party, policy handbook revisions, complaint monitoring, and permitting EEOC to inspect the company's facility and records as part of the agency's compliance monitoring. Additionally, EEOC requires LeachGarner to collect, keep, and analyze data relevant to assessing and remedying potential barriers to equal opportunity in hiring, job assignments, and/or compensation.
The consent decree also requires LeachGarner to notify applicants and employees that employment decisions are not made based on sex-based assumptions or stereotypes, but on qualifications and experience. This requirement, and the consent decree as a whole, is not only in line with longtime non-discrimination regulations stemming from and the historical interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but also with EEOC's continued emphasis on merit-based decision-making and recent strategic actions.
How Does This Case Fit With EEOC's Overall Strategy?
One noticeable distinction between EEOC's now-rescinded Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2024-2028 (SEP) and the Commission's recently published National Enforcement Plan for FY 2025-FY 2029 (NEP) was that the SEP had explicitly stated "Advancing Equal Pay for All Workers" was one of the Commission's top priorities, while the new NEP does not include such a declaration. However, the lack of an enumerated "equal pay" priority in the NEP does not mean that EEOC has stopped investigating and litigating cases involving discrimination in pay. In fact, the LeachGarner settlement serves as an example of EEOC addressing priority areas described in the NEP, such as the following types of cases:
"Channeling, steering, or segregating individuals into specific jobs or job duties based on protected characteristics."
"Matters involving intentional discrimination arising from challenging broad-based employment policies, programs, or practices that result in intentional discrimination against employees or applicants for employment, such as cases alleging patterns of discrimination in hiring, lay-offs, job mobility, fringe benefits and/or pay." [emphasis added]
Settlement agreements like LeachGarner's shed light on EEOC's efforts to implement new agency strategic priorities in a preexisting regulatory and enforcement framework. Stay tuned to the DCI Blog for more EEOC updates.